About us

About us We at the Pendulum Foundation believe that the only real prison is the prison of the heart. Our mission is to physically, emotionally and spiritually free all of our young men and women whose childhoods have been lost, and who have been thrown away in Colorado’s prison system. Established as a non-profit in 2001, Pendulum is dedicated to educating the public about the issue of children in adult prisons, and in transforming the lives of all those youthful offenders who are currently behind bars. Colorado has approximately 50 juveniles serving life without parole (LWOP). Pendulum stays in close written contact with those young men and women, plus other youths serving long prison sentences. Because of our unusual access to offenders and their families, we can provide comprehensive background data for researchers documenting the lives of children in adult prisons. We continue to receive extensive international media interest. Radio, television and print reporters from Germany, Austria, Great Britain and other industrialized nations have profiled our young men and women, as well as our organization. In addition, we’ve received local, regional and national coverage. The most extensive coverage has been Frontline’s, WHEN KIDS GET LIFE, a powerful 90 minute documentary that details the lives of our Colorado juvenile LWOP. (Accessed through PBS.org/ type in Frontline) Thanks to Pendulum’s efforts, Colorado is the only state that has lowered juvenile LWOP. Currently, no child can serve more than 40 years without an opportunity for parole. That is far too much time, but it’s a start. We were also instrumental in the idea behind Colorado’s Juvenile Clemency Board – the first of its kind in the nation. Currently, several other states are looking to us to help them provide a similar board as an interim step. Under our lobbying arm, Pendulum Juvenile Justice, we are working on a 2010 ballot initiative that would provide sentencing reform for all juveniles in the adult prison system. Because HB1305, which ended juvenile LWOP, mandates programs for those young men and women who are currently incarcerated, we have presented to DOC and the governor’s office a cognitive behavior program that would totally transform Colorado’s prison system. That program would be implemented at NO excess cost to the state and could be replicated in facilities and juvenile systems throughout America. We are also working to take restorative justice into the prison and to work more closely with victims, whose pain must never be forgotten. Finally, we are committed to passing HR2289, which would end juvenile LWOP throughout the world. (Since we are the only nation that sentences children to die in prison, once it is ended in U.S., it will be ended forever.) HR2289 is sponsored by Reps. Bobby Scott and John Conyers and will be vigorously pursued after the November election. We will also intensely support the current drive to have the United States ratify the Convention for the Rights of the Child. Currently, only two nations in the entire world have not ratified this treaty. Somalia is the only other nation that has decided children deserve no rights.